Has Brewster been fired yet?

I was watching one of the weather channels and Sven kept explaining that it was only a few degrees below average, that it feels really cold because the temperature has been so much above average for the last couple of weeks.

Oh! Well, thanks Sven, that's good information.

I had to get an early start again today. I did that yesterday because of hockey, I did it today because of the extremely important football coming up in about an hour. That makes two football references so far both of which may only be intelligible to locals.

Here's a third, they should fire Maturi too.

With an early start it was still cool and it was the coldest temperatures I have ridden in since spring, only in the low 50s. But the sun was out, winds were light from the south and all in all, it was very pleasant. It reminded me of why October is my favorite month.

I may have posted this particular yard display last year but if I did it still seems worthy of a replay.You can see from the photo that it was sunny at this point. I was pretty unprepared for what happened about an hour and a half into the ride. I HAD noticed that it didn't look as nice to the west over Minneapolis as it looked where I was but I wasn't tracking what was going on over there. Suddenly what seemed without warning, boom, overcast. The wind shifted around to the north and this wind a little bite to it. I went from a really pretty October day to one that looked and felt like November.

Sven in his discussion of lower temperatures also pointed out that there is a strong possibility of frost for tonight and that delicate plants should be covered if you want to try to prolong their lives. With that in mind I got what may be the last photo of the flowering plants in the often featured yard near home.Some of them are orange, a couple seem pretty much purple (another football reference), a smattering of white, a nice selection of pink, and off to the left there some yellow with reddish orange centers. I am able to identify none of the above but I suspect, based on the yard, that they are more likely native than exotic. The photo also demonstrates that the sun is no longer out.

I think they should hire the University of South Dakota football coach.

Early start

We had hockey this afternoon so if we were going to ride we had to get out the door early. We started at 11am, which at this time of year is too early in the day for the sun to have warmed the air very much.

But it wasn't too bad, 58 or so when we started and warming thoughout. The problem today was, again, strong wind.

But we did ride. I was leading a sneak around to avoid an early face down of the north wind. We ended up passing through the Farm campus and got a good look at the cows in fall.But eventually we got headed into the wind and it WAS strong. We rode out to the Shoreview water tower but it was HARD. Along the way we passed this display which seems to me to be all three food groups.You got your reddish oak, your turning to orange maple, and your green spruce. The only thing missing is chocolate.

There are a couple of places along the route where people have planted exotic grasses. This is the time of year when that investment pays off with spectacular displays.GRider for scale.

I was checking my bike log for something or another and noticed a couple of reasons why last October I rode so few miles. It snowed on October 10, again on October 12, and yet again on October 15. None of those snows stayed more than a few hours and permanent snow cover did not come until December 1.

Orange biker strikes again

The average high temperature for this date has reached another milestone, it is now only 59. And October has arrived. I think that today we have reached the average and may even struggle a degree or two above it but it has been a day long struggle. Today I rode out into temperatures in the 50s. It's OK, I have the gear. I was not really the orange biker today, the cool day brought out long sleeved jersey, light jacket and tights.

Even worse is the daylight situation. We now have only 11 hours between sunrise at 7:28am and sunset at 6:28pm. I miss the light more than I miss the heat. I have the gear but I have no way to compensate for too much night.

Too much night. It is depressing.

I rode off into light and variable winds which seemed to me to be mostly south and east and headed down into the big city.

I found flowers again, this time in front of the University President's residence, outside the white picket fence along the River Road. I don't know what they are. Maybe someone else does.I rode on intending to view the river confluence to observe what it looked like now with the flood receded. However the closer I got to the Ford Parkway bridge to Minneapolis the more I considered that this might well be my last opportunity of the season to visit the Falls.Isnt' that sad? Already thinking about lasts of the year.

There is still a lot of water coming over the edge and the Falls looks interesting viewed through the now bare trees.

I have decided to address the tepid response to the world premier of my first ever shot with a cheap point and shoot camera video. Of comments noted to this point, three comments by two separate commenters do not even address this momentous event, choosing instead to focus on the horticultural content of the post. Of the two who have commented, one, the Guest Rider gives a vigorous thumbs up, pronouncing herself to be amused (I assume that's what is indicated by "laugh out loud"). The other who comments on the video, the Master Gardener, gives an equally strong statement, a firm thumbs down, averring that her lifespan has been irrevocably and regrettably diminished by the act of watching the video.

Well!

Well, OK then.

In hopes of redemption I present the video of the year as shot by Wireless and posted on her blog but never previously featured on my blog. Here, from Paris, I present the bells of Notre Dame.

I hope everyone feels better now.

She is better at that than I am. She even posted hers to YouTube.

Tonight in Nantes FC Nantes played a nil nil draw with Ligue 2 co-leader Tours FC. With 10 games now having been played the season is one-fourth complete. With today's result FC Nantes falls to seventh in the table, passed by LeMans. They play again Monday.

EG:59 CB:56 AOWG:68

Other news from the Fairgrounds, currently underway is the Star of North antique show, running Friday through Sunday at the Education building.

Orange biker

I broke a basic rule today. It is perhaps THE most basic rule. I always start the ride into the wind, preferring to do the hardest work while I am fresh and preferring to ride the homeward leg in a direction where I feel really strong.

Today the wind was WSW when I left my house but two forecasters predicted a 5pm wind direction of NNW. I took a chance that they were right and that the wind shift would occur while I was out there.

I started out feeling really strong but after less than four miles I was suddenly confronted with a quite strong head wind. For the rest of the ride both north and west were directions which were a bit difficult. Lucky for me after about nine more miles I turned and thereafter rode mostly south.

We have had frost here but not a killing frost. As a result the decorative plantings in the yards of very many people are still flourishing. I didn't get an orange tree today but I did get these really swell orange flowers.Those flowers are next to the homeowner's garage. As I was lining up the shot the garage door began to rise and soon the old couple backed their car out. We ended up having a quite pleasant exchange. They were mostly happy to have such clear evidence of someone else enjoying the visual benefits of their growing season long labor.

I enjoyed that so much that I stopped at another yard in Shoreview.This one also has a second flower bed there across the driveway. I noticed as I started to ride away that the second one has a couple of rose bushes.

Very pretty.

I also inadvertently learned something today. I know this isn't hard but I hadn't done it before. Sometimes my camera settings get jostled while the camera rides in my jersey pocket. Today I didn't notice what the camera was set on until it failed to execute a shutter click when I pressed the shutter release button. I turned the camera up to get a look at what the problem might be. It should be obvious what setting I had.

I hope you all enjoy viewing that as much as I enjoyed taking it.

The timing of my rides recently is such that as I near home I often pass through an intersection being patrolled by the Brimhall School Patrol. Recently they have taken to calling out to me. A couple of weeks ago when I was wearing my Paris souvenir jersey they called out to "Uncle Sam" but I replied to them as I went past "France". One of the kids called out that explained why the jersey said "Paris" on it. Today I was wearing my Euskaltel jersey.

"Hey, what's up orange biker?"

Return of gear

Today was yet another above average day. It was sunny and bright with temperatures above average for this date. However, the cooler air that arrived yesterday meant temperatures only 5 degrees above average in place of the recent run of 15 to 20 degrees above average. It was still very nice.

The morning newspaper reports that the average high for the date has now descended to 60. That means that for most of the day it is expectable that the temperatures be in the 50s. Today when I set out to ride it was 61 and I completed my ride in the low mid-60s (that's code for 63 or 64).

Cooler temperatures means that the near summer costume I have been donning the past several days had to give way to something more suitable for, oh say, late September. This means base layer, arm warmers and my lightest weight jacket. I have the gear, I had no issues, I was totally comfortable.

I rode north but changed the route a bit. Instead of turning and going down the hill along the south side of Snail Lake I continued along Victoria intending to navigate along the west and eventually the north side of the lake. I have done that a couple of times before, usually in the opposite direction, but it is pretty unfamiliar turf.

LOOK what we found:I think that one gets special mention because of the orange bush standing nearby.

But the major discovery is that there is a major apple orchard out there. I did not know that.Nineteen varieties grown and sold on site. I looked it up on Google maps and got the photo view and it is definitely major. So that's something new learned today.

I made it all the way to Highway 96, the usual limit of northern rides and then turned back through Snail Lake Park. I came upon this double reminder notice.That is a reminder that fall is waning and it is a reminder that urban deer are vermin.

I headed off road for the second time this year on my road bike and took the dirt road through Grass Lake. I thought this oak tree was pretty.It hasn't rained much this fall so the road was hard and dry and presented no problems.

It was a gorgeous looking day highlighted by the return of gear.

Limit approaches

The deal with settling on photographing orange leaves as a theme is a self limiting proposition. Obviously the process that produces the orange leaves is very shortly going to produce bare branches. Temperatures today started the slide back towards normal. The morning forecast called for a 20 percent chance of rain. However, by noon the leading edge of the clouds thought to be the source of that rain had broken apart and never arrived here. The air mass that the clouds were leading did arrive. It was 71 when I set out and in a new development, the air got cooler while I was out.

With the end on my mind I set out today still determined to think orange. I had a specific spot in Shoreview in mind, a spot which I hoped would still display orange. I got my photo out there but have not used it for reasons soon to be revealed.

Instead I got this, what your yard looks like if you have several mature oak trees.I am going to go with red for that color, not orange. It is a pretty nice spot. When I took the photo I was standing under another set of mature oaks which decorate the yard across the street.

But not to despair, even as many of the orange are leaving there are still a few in the process of arriving.That's in northwest Roseville only a couple of blocks from this outrageously elaborate yard display.I was all the way back within the city limits of Saint Paul when I came upon a mountain ash. I was seeking this photo in Shoreview but that tree out there was way, way past peak including having already dropped most of its fruit. Here we are near Como Park, orange fruit.But just to prove how close we are to the end here is Albert Street looking north from Frankson in Saint Paul.Mostly bare, but one block over is Sheldon, the street lined with oaks. Sheldon hasn't even started to change color.It was very windy today, almost too windy. It was hard and because the air cooled during the ride. It was cold on the into the wind legs. I ended up being just slightly under dressed. I hate that.

EG:68 CB:65! AOWG:75? Weather channel said 71 when I left, 68 when I got home.

Floating holiday

Another OOTNDITHOD. 1936 must have been something because the last couple of days here have NOT set records for high temperature. 1936 continues to rule but it was 79 today and that's enough for me.

The wind couldn't really decide what direction it was blowing from as I started out which meant that I couldn't figure out what direction to ride. I ended up just sort of riding around. But that was OK, it was a beautiful day and that bicycle ride was the most important thing on my schedule.

I ended up down in the city again although in a completely different part of the city than I have been in recently. Although it felt like summer there are plenty of reminders that October is already flying by, like this front yard in the Como neighborhood.There is already a lot of that going on. I suppose that decorating for Halloween actually makes more sense than decorating for Christmas. You get better weather both for putting stuff up and for taking it back down.

Just a couple of blocks away from those ghouls I came across this beauty. I hope we can all agree that the color is orange.I have ridden and reported several times on Calvary cemetery, the early settlement Catholic cemetery. Today I found myself in the neighborhood of the early settlement Protestant cemetery, Oakland. Calvary is located on a hill in the north end from which you can easily see the Cathedral. Oakland is located on a hill in the north end right behind the Capitol.

This guy didn't die that long ago but I thought the spot was pretty picturesque.The Ordways don't have the large monument that most rich people have. However, they do have their own hedge.Calvary has the graves of the first Catholic bishops and archbishops and a field of graves of nuns and priests. Oakland has a monument to fire fighters.I thought that group of stones in the background might be fire fighters but it actually turns out to be Civil War veterans. That would be Civil War veterans as opposed to casualties of the Civil War. As Minnesota school children used to learn in their Minnesota history class (I wonder if they still teach that in school here) very many of Minnesota's casualties from the Civil War are buried at Gettysburg where on the second day of the battle the 1st Minnesota Volunteers suffered extremely heavy losses while holding the center of the line on Cemetery Ridge to help repulse Pickett's Charge.

I was in the neighborhood so I rode down to the government. This orange tree is in the shade so it may not show its color as well as some others but on the other hand being somewhat sheltered by that building it may be holding its leaves longer than some others.I took out my phone and called upstairs to see if anyone wanted to come out and play but couldn't get in contact with the likely truants. They were all away from their desks. However, Debbie did come over to the window and wave and I did run into Jon in the parking lot. It felt almost like going to work. Lucky for me today is the day I always take my floating holiday so I was able to ride my bicycle instead.

Bike Snob NYC manages to pull off on bicycle photography all the time so when I saw a salmon approaching today I went for my camera and tried to get a photo.She was not only salmoning, she had headphones. She seemed chagrined that I refused to yield the side of the road that she wanted to ride on. My position on salmon is that I am the one obeying the law, if one of us is going to have to swing out closer to traffic, it is going to be you. I absolutely hugged the edge of the pavement on the right and she finally figured it out and swung out to face traffic.